LARA Bingle, Whitney Houston and Stephanie Rice were among the nation's most Googled people of 2012 - while Prime Minister Julia Gillard's infamous "misogyny'' speech ranked in the top 10 most searched for news events.

The four featured in the search engine's annual trends report for Australia, revealed yesterday.

Bingle was not only the most Googled Australian celebrity, but was the number three top trending celebrity worldwide behind Bee Gees Robin and Barry Gibb - meaning she saw one of the biggest jumps in search activity during the year.

Supermodel Miranda Kerr and The Voice judge Delta Goodrem were the second and third most searched-for local celebrities, while swimmer Rice and hurdler Sally Pearson were the top two most Googled Aussie Olympians. Rice was also the number four most Googled athlete worldwide.

Whitney Houston's death in February saw her become the year's top trending person and the number four top trending topic overall, as well as the most searched for celebrity death for the year.

The tragic September death of Port Adelaide footballer John McCarthy made the 23-year-old one of the top people searches for the year, placing him fourth behind Houston, Kate Middleton and Morgan Freeman.

More Australians searched for pictures of English boy band One Direction than any other topic this year, with members Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan also ranking on the top 10 images list.

Channel 7's Home and Away was the most searched-for TV show, Bali topped Aussies' most Googled travel destinations and the Sydney Swans' epic AFL grand final win over Hawthorn cemented their position as the most searched for Australian sports team.

And while you may be sick of Gangnam Style now, you weren't in 2012 - the South Korean pop phenomenon was not only the search engine's number one trending song but the top trending topic for the year overall.

BingleSource:Supplied

The video for the song by rapper Psy has racked up more than 930 million YouTube views since July, and is on track to be the first video to hit one billion views.